Planning Your New Golden Years - The Joy of Working for Late Career Women
Posted on August 21, 2016 by Phyllis Horner, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
Smart women start planning early for their work beyond retirement to provide meaning, personal growth, and financial security. Learn why and how!
In the old days, in our parent’s careers, the term “Golden Years” was created to indicate a life of leisure and stress-free living past the retirement age of 65. these were the days of company pensions and life expectancy of 10 years post retirement.
It was a cliff-like exit from work. You had your retirement party and then, well, you vanished from the radar. As women, we were probably coming of age in the height of this time – the 1970’s. Boy, have times changed!
Now, the Golden Years are a bit more complicated. We’re the sandwich generation, caring often for adult children as well as aging parents. We “had it all”, meaning that we had a full time career, a family, and the expectation that we have personal time as well. Retirement? It’s unpredictable for most of us who have 401Ks instead of pensions and who wonder about how to make ends meet for 20- 25 years beyond our eligibility for Social Security. And, as women, we are likely to outlive our partners or spouses, which makes for an even more uncertain scenario, from a planning standpoint.
So the New Golden Years are more of a gradual exit from work, for two reasons. First, continuing to work in some capacity meets our needs of being vibrant, connected, important, visible and contributing to society. Second, working provides control of our financial reality and less vulnerability to the inevitable swings of the stock market.
Even though this is true, many women, even at 60 or older, don’t think through the kinds of work they would like to have early enough. We want to be young and vibrant for as long as possible, and to start planning for work “post-retirement” means that we have to accept that we are on that pathway. And we’re not sure how to go about doing this planning – should it be individual, or connected with a partner or spouse? Should we stay in our current job, or try something new? How do we minimize the risks?
Beyond the questions of how to go about it, we also have to give away our past “dreams” of lazy days by the lake, doing mainly nothing. We somehow bought into the myth of passive retirement. Our logic shows us that retirement is gone, that if we want golden years, we will probably need to bring in some gold! But emotionally we are still saddened by the loss of the promise that we could finally relax.
With both of these factors in play, what’s a smart professional woman to do? Well, many of my clients come to realize that they would be bored in a traditional retirement anyway. Once they figure this out, they become really excited about working post-retirement. Working on their own terms in areas that are passions or strengths, mixed with leisure, friends and physical activities, becomes a new “golden years” opportunity.
